Cat kindly found a link, I can't be bothered to research feeling this ill. William Blum is the author of Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II. Portions of the book can be read at: http://members.aol. com/bblum6/American holocaust.htm.

British Guiana/Guyana, 1953-64: For 11 years, two of the oldest democracies in the world, Great Britain and the United States, went to great lengths to prevent a democratically elected leader from occupying his office. Cheddi Jagan was another Third World leader who tried to remain neutral and independent. He was elected three times. Although a leftist-more so than Sukarno or Arbenz-his policies in office were not revolutionary. But he was still a marked man, for he represented Washington's greatest fear: building a society that might be a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model. Using a wide variety of tactics-from general strikes and disinformation to terrorism and British legalisms, the U. S. and Britain finally forced Jagan out in 1964. John F. Kennedy had given a direct order for his oust[ing], as, presumably, had Eisenhower. One of the better-off countries in the region under Jagan, Guyana, by the 1980s, was one of the poorest. Its principal export became people.

Cambodia, 1955-73: Prince Sihanouk was yet another leader who did not fancy being an American client. After many years of hostility towards his regime, including assassination plots and the infamous Nixon/Kissinger secret carpet bombings of 1969-70, Washington finally overthrew Sihanouk in a coup in 1970. This was all that was needed to impel Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge forces to enter the fray. Five years later, they took power. But five years of American bombing had caused Cambodia's traditional economy to vanish. Incredibly, the Khmer Rouge were to inflict even greater misery on this unhappy land. To add to the irony, the United States supported Pol Pot, militarily and diplomatically, after their subsequent defeat by the Vietnamese.

The Congo/Zaire, 1960-65: In June 1960, Patrice Lumumba became the Congo's first [democratically elected] prime minister after independence from Belgium. But Belgium retained its vast mineral wealth in Katanga province, prominent Eisenhower administration officials had financial ties to the same wealth, and Lumumba, at Independence Day ceremonies before a host of foreign dignitaries, called for the nation's economic as well as its political liberation, and recounted a list of injustices against the natives by the previous white owners of the country. The man was obviously a "Communist." In September, Lumumba was dismissed by the president at the instigation of the United States, and in January 1961 he was assassinated at the express request of Dwight Eisenhower. There followed several years of civil conflict and chaos and the rise to power of Mobutu Sese Seko, a man not a stranger to the CIA. Mobutu went on to rule the country for more than 30 years, with a level of corruption and cruelty that shocked even his CIA handlers. The Zairian people lived in abject poverty despite the plentiful natural wealth, while Mobutu became a multibillionaire.

You know those famous shovels and hammers and electronics and hardware supplied by private contractors to the military at 10 times the cost as you can buy the same stuff for at the local hardware, tech store and manufactory? Yeah, no. That's actually creative accounting hiding black-ops missions and hardware.

That's a myth. People play along because it's funny. You don't fund operations you want to shield from congressional oversight or public scrutiny by obvious budget line items 100 whackjob conspiracy theorists will find the second after it's published.

You also very rarely use government assets if you can possibly avoid it. DoD tends to sell arms at inflated prices to finance, State funnels mostly domestic private money through trusts, CIA uses mostly foreign money.

The idea that secrecy is "hidden" in public records *if your just clever enough to find it* is Micheal Bay movie stuff, not reality. It's important to be able to tell the difference.

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Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

You know those famous shovels and hammers and electronics and hardware supplied by private contractors to the military at 10 times the cost as you can buy the same stuff for at the local hardware, tech store and manufactory? Yeah, no. That's actually creative accounting hiding black-ops missions and hardware.

That's a myth. People play along because it's funny. You don't fund operations you want to shield from congressional oversight or public scrutiny by obvious budget line items 100 whackjob conspiracy theorists will find the second after it's published.

It wouldn't have been a plot point in Independence Day if it wasn't true!

Wrong question. Imagine that the US government didn't have a constitution which protected its citizens. Imagine that it routinely used secret police to round citizens up and torture and then disappear them. Imagine that it used constant fear of what it could do to its citizens to keep everyone in line and doing whatever it wanted. Then imagine that in this alternate universe the Chinese had a century long history of intervening in situations like this, helping create or restore governments where liberty and rule of law reign rather than rule by fear. Imagine that they found some excuse to invade the US, remove its government from power and were then working to create a better one where we wouldn't be subject to constant fear and pain.

Um, The US has actually done quite the opposite in most cases, especially during the cold war. You would interfere in countries that had legally elected a government that had no intention of becoming any sort of dictatorship because you didn't agree with their political position, it was most obvious in the unjust and unnecessary interference in Central America.

And then there's the fact that time and time again, you support dictatorships, genocidal leaders, and countries who continue to commit terrifying amount of human rights offences, all in the name of business interests.

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So I ask you this: How do you talk someone out of genocide? How many economic sanctions does it take to prevent a madman from invading a neighboring country? The thought of absolutely every world problem being solved with talks and treaties is ridiculous. Once you agree that force is never a justifiable option, you tacitly agree to never have the worst of human problems solved

You can't talk someone out of genocide. It's not possible. But generally, we seem to pick our battles oddly. Reaction to the Armenian Genocide in Turkey before and during the First World War was basically a "stern talking to". Reaction to the Soviet government's murder of millions of Ukranians by starvation was basically non-existent. Reaction to the genocide in **** Germany only existed because we happened upon the concentration camps, before that, despite the knowledge of the treatment of Jews in **** Germany, no one bothered to even try to do anything, ****, we all even turned away the refugees.

We didn't intervene in force in Rwanda, we still aren't intervening in force in Sudan, we never intervened with anything but sanctions in South Africa. We installed dictatorships in Iran, in Libya, In Central America, in Haiti, etc, etc, etc. It's just not possible to take the high road. We intervene when there are business interests at stake.

****, we still support Israel despite a huge amount of proof of massive amount of crimes against humanity in their treatment of the Palestinians.

Ari wrote:

Everything

Saved me some work in looking up some articles and stuff, as it's impossible for me to link to direct quotes from my personal mini-library of books, documentaries, and essays. Awesome.

Eh, I didn't cite actual cases, just pulled the general trend out of my background knowledge. Which could have been out of my **** as far as anyone else knew, unless they had some knowledge of these world affairs themselves. Thanks go to Cat for at least finding us a google link to a list.

Driftwood - I was speaking in broad terms. Believe me, I'm well aware of the US's tendency to stand on the wrong side of history. I was simply saying that labeling yourself "anti-war" is labeling yourself effectively nothing. No one likes war, but what are you anti-more? War or genocide? What are you more in favor of? Not having war or not having massive human rights abuse and UN resolution violations?

Driftwood - I was speaking in broad terms. Believe me, I'm well aware of the US's tendency to stand on the wrong side of history. I was simply saying that labeling yourself "anti-war" is labeling yourself effectively nothing. No one likes war, but what are you anti-more? War or genocide? What are you more in favor of? Not having war or not having massive human rights abuse and UN resolution violations?

I wasn't strictly speaking of the Iraq war. However, I'm not saying that we shouldn't have interfered in order to stop genocide, I'm saying that we shouldn't have interfered under false pretenses, and then proceeded to tell them how to organize their country. In the case of Afghanistan, we had absolutely zero reason to be there, and now the only reason we're still there is because we went there in the first place.

I was speaking more against acting like the US has been so good in the past about ending genocide and such, which they aren't It's a terrible track record, really.

I'm anti-war when it's an unjust, or stupid war, for example, Vietnam, The 2003 Iraq War, the War in Afghanistan, etc. And of course I'm anti-genocide, and anti-human rights abuses.

Yes, and I wasn't speaking about US actions at all, really. I wanted to get to the root of the issue. People too often get muddled in extraneous details while trying to argue the core of a point. Your last sentence or two really says exactly what I mean: "anti-war" doesn't really mean anything, because EVERYONE is against wars they find stupid. Whether or not I agree or disagree with your analysis of the wars listed is irrelevant.